November 25, 2005

  • greetings from san diego (entry from November 16)

    Since I'm getting sleepy (silly three hour time difference), here's a rundown. Hopefully I can qualify each bullet point with pics soon.

    weather

    Warm and sunny during the day, 60's and 70's, but down to the 40's and 50's at night where I was staying by the shore. The wind becomes chilly after 3pm, but not brutal as in the winter winds of the NYC metropolitan area. After 9:30pm, there's always this REALLY THICK fog that makes driving quite challenging.

    day one: sunday nov 13

    - Stayed up all night, since I was up until 3am packing and I had to leave at 6 for JFK anyway

    - Flew JetBlue from JFK

    - Slept only 1 1/2 hours out of 6 on the plane. These old guys were yelling and screaming while watching Sunday afternoon football on DirectTV. They were also ignoring all calls to shut them up.

    - Arrived at Long Beach, picked up rental car

    - Stopped at overlook on the way to San Diego (not sure who that person that got in the picture was, but it certainly wasn't me )




    - Arrived at Best Western Island Palms Hotel & Marina



    (view of marina in back of my hotel room)




    - Got a free upgrade to a 2 queen suite ... quite a bit of room for just me. Too bad the wireless internet connection here was slow


    - Felt really tired from not sleeping, so I didn't feel like doing much.

    - Went to Homefire Grill for dinner. Simple place where you order at the counter and a server serves you the food. Medium-cooked roast beef ("Tri Tips"?) and mashed were pretty good.




    - Went to Target and Vons (a supermarket chain) to get supplies.

    day two: monday nov 14

    - Went to the San Diego Zoo ... Took about 180 pictures there, definitely a record for me. My favorites:


    (panda)



    (giraffes)



    (elephants)




    - Took a shower, then headed for the Gaslamp Quarter, which reminded me of Hoboken, Greenwich Village, and St. Marks' Place all mashed together in 16 blocks of San Diego.





     


     


     


     


     


    - Had dinner at CH1V3 (yes, it was spelled that way). With a name like that, I was expecting some kind of chef that whipped food up together while playing World of Warcraft. Apparently that wasn't the case. The wild mushroom soup and free-range chicken were excellent; the food as well as the decor reminded me more of Morimoto's (in Philly) when it actually tasted good. Dinner and my famous club soda cost $30 not including gratuity, which I found to be very reasonable.




    - Walked around a bit more and had trouble finding the garage I parked the car in, then headed back to the hotel.

    day three: tuesday nov 15

    - Went to the Old Town district. Nothing much there except for school groups, old buildings, and overpriced souvenir shops. In fact, the majority of the buildings had been restored due to an earlier fire that destroyed most of the town, so that seemed to reduce the historic value somewhat, IMHO. I did get some pictures of some of the old adobe-style architecture.





    - Had lunch at Fred's Mexican Cafe, home of the unique grilled mahi-mahi burrito. I had that as well as a basic chicken soft taco. Definitely packed a punch (and a good-tasting one at that) for a mere 8 bucks. (Sorry, I ate part of the burrito before remembering to take a picture, lol)




    - Drove to the Cleveland National Forest, about 45 miles east of San Diego. Some interesting scenery there. A little chilly for hiking though.




    - Went to Cafe Luna for dinner, which is a place off the beaten path, 45 minutes away from the hotel (but still within San Diego city limits). The place certainly deserved its #1 Yahoo Travel ranking ... creamy leek soup, some sort of portabello mushroom with mozarella as an appetizer, and butternut squash ravioli.. all pretty good. However, I have seen comparable food in North Jersey and in NYC. Cafe Michelina's in Hoboken will still do it for me Total bill: $39, a little on the pricey side for a suburban restaurant in a strip mall, but NYC would have cost more for three items designated as "specials."


    (soup)



    (mushroom appetizer)



    (squash ravioli)



    - Spent an hour writing this xanga entry




    Tomorrow I'm headed for Las Vegas, but I enjoyed San Diego, so I might just be back here on Friday before heading up to Long Beach as the final destination I still have yet to investigate the live music scene, which I may do on Friday.

Comments (12)

Comments are closed.

Post a Comment